The Myth of the “New Taiwanese”: Identity Construction and Language Ideology in the Bilingual Discourse of Taipei’s Young Generation

 

Dominika Baran

Harvard University

 

In this paper I examine how the bilingual interactions of young speakers in Taipei reflect and reproduce the complexity of language ideologies that have been constructed in the political and popular discourse on Taiwanese identity since the beginning of Kuomintang (KMT) rule in 1949, through the shift to democracy and local rule in 1987, until today. Through a detailed analysis of recorded everyday conversations, I show that in their linguistic choices (such as dominant language choice or code-switching) speakers participate in the continuing production of ideologies surrounding the status and role of the local variety, Taiwanese, and the official variety, Mandarin.

 

Taiwan is especially interesting as a case-study of language ideology in practice. Because of its indefinite place on the international arena, not recognized as an independent country and yet functioning as such in many practical domains (a situation compounded by the proximity of Mainland China, with its own “one China” ideology and consequent claims on Taiwan), Taiwan’s leadership is continually struggling with defining the ethnic, national, and cultural identity of the island. When Taiwan was ruled exclusively by the KMT party, who after retreating from the Mainland adhered to their claim of being the legitimate government of all of China, the strict Mandarin-only language policy constructed the Mandarin dialect as the only variety suitable as the national language uniting all Chinese people, simultaneously relegating the native dialect of Taiwan (Taiwanese) to the status of a provincial and “backward” dialect. Following political democratization in 1987, political power passed to the local DPP party, whose language policies have elevated the status of Taiwanese, promoting it as an emblem of local Taiwanese identity as distinct from that of China. Promoting linguistic equality is also part of constructing the new image of Taiwan as a modern, democratic society that deserves to be accepted by the international community. These official ideologies have in turn inspired popular ideologies that have either supported or challenged them. Depending on ethnic and geographic origin, socio-economic class affiliation, and educational level of the community, Taiwanese is variously constructed as the dialect of the countryside, the dialect of the older, uneducated or conservative generations, the language of the “people” which embodies the true spirit of Taiwan, or a fully legitimate language which merits official status. Correspondingly, Mandarin is constructed as the language of the metropolis, as naturally more elegant and “educated,” as a convenient medium for official communication which, however, lacks the colorfulness and expressiveness of Taiwanese, or as a foreign language imposed on the Taiwanese people. In constructing their identities through their linguistic choices, speakers draw on these ideologies and participate in their production. Based on my research, I show that speakers do not statically espouse and reproduce one language ideology based on their ethnic or social background, but move between different, often conflicting ones as they negotiate their identities and relationships of power and dominance in interactions with different speakers in different areas of their life.

 

This paper is part of ongoing research that I have been conducting in an evening high school in Taipei. The students, aged 15-26, belong to the generation portrayed by Taiwanese politicians as the “New Taiwanese”: the generation who supposedly assumes a “supra-ethnic” identity that transcends local origins or identifications, and treats multilingualism in Taiwan as natural without assigning political value to speakers’ linguistic affiliations or preferences (Shih and Wei 2002). The students come from an urban area in Taipei County, which traditionally has a strong Taiwanese and working class identity. Its inhabitants are early migrants from the South of Taiwan who came to Taipei in search of work. However, the students I work with have daytime jobs, which include both blue-collar and white-collar professions, and come to school in the evening. In this way, they participate in the local culture of their home neighborhood, in the youth culture of Taipei when going out with their friends, in the state-sanctioned culture of education, and in the working culture of their jobs. Drawing on ethnographic studies of bilingualism (ex. Heller 1999, Zentella 1997), this paper is based on three months of research conducted in the school, including daily presence in the classroom and at break-time, getting to know the students and their friendship networks, going out with them and their friends on the weekends and visiting them in their homes. I combine conversation analysis of recorded data with ethnographic participant-observation and interviews to show that these young speakers, subsumed by the official ideology under the slogan term of the “New Taiwanese,” choose their dominant language (Mandarin or Taiwanese) and code-switch to negotiate their individual and group identities, and in making these choices draw on and recreate linguistic ideologies and the power relationships implied in them. As an example, a young speaker from a Mandarin-dominant family in which Taiwanese was seen as the language of the countryside spoken only with the grandparents, regularly code-switches into Taiwanese in interactions with the network of friends who have blue-collar jobs, and for whom Taiwanese is a mark of local and class pride. In existing studies, such code-switching is treated as an accommodation strategy, a mark of solidarity, or evidence of a growing acceptance of Taiwan’s multilingual identity (Shih and Wei 2002). However, language choice and code-switching in Taiwan requires an analysis from the point of view of language ideology (as developed in recent literature, ex. Woolard and Schieffelin 1994, Gal and Irvine 2000, and others), which acknowledges and brings to light the relationship between ideas about language and the relations of power between ethnic groups and socio-economic classes, and the way this relationship is manifested and produced in interaction.